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Original Air Date: February 26, 2008
This episode gets off to a hilarious start when MARMADUKE, decked out in his Sunday best (his mom LEILA tells him he looks like the president), heads toward the carpooling car one morning while a terrified LAIRD, AUBREY, and DOUGIE instinctively lock the doors to keep him out because he’s too big to fit comfortably. It turns out their instincts were correct because as soon as Marmaduke gets in the car, he takes up half the space. Worse, he gives the guys a Pet Sounds DVD to play that’s exactly what the title says … NOT the Beach Boys album.
GRACEN‘s son needs a lift into the city, where he has an appointment at the bank to get a loan. When they arrive, Marmaduke asks his dad to accompany him for moral support as he makes a presentation about starting a lawn mowing service using sheep. The bank representatives immediately whip out the paperwork to approve the loan … as long as Gracen signs over his house as collateral. Gracen, regardless of his eagerness for his 22-year-old son to finally grow up and get out, refuses.
When he reveals his decision to the guys, they all respond that it was Gracen’s duty to support his son. Then Marmaduke hears his parents discussing him later that night, right before he informs them he’s leaving to make his own way in America.
Leila, unlike happy Gracen, is worried sick over his whereabouts. But, when she calls him the next day and hears his phone making its distinctive rooster ring, the sound leads her and Gracen next door to Laird’s house. Marmaduke is staying there, and he and Laird are hitting it off fabulously. In fact, Laird considers him a son that he didn’t have to go through the boring part of raising.
Laird likes having Marmaduke around so much, he decides to invest in his sheep mowing business, and the animals arrive soon after. The dentist figures it’s about helping Marmaduke follow his dreams, while Gracen thinks he’s only prolonging one of his son’s numerous doomed money-making schemes.
To Gracen’s shock, though, it initially seems that the sheep mowing business is producing excellent results, and Marmaduke is making a lot of money. Still, Gracen refuses to support his son’s venture, until Leila gets him to understand why — if he does admit that Marmaduke was right about the sheep, he’ll then have to admit that Marmaduke was probably right about other previous wild ideas that Gracen didn’t bother listening to.
As the Brookers are having this conversation, people in the Hillsbridge neighborhood are discovering that the sheep are destroying their lawns. Apparently, there’s not enough grass to keep the animals full, and they’re eating everything in sight. Frightened Marmaduke soon flees the area with an angry mob of residents on his heels.
Thankfully, Gracen finds his son trying to hitch a ride, and he tells Marmaduke he’s proud of him. Marmaduke agrees to return home then, but he insists on walking despite his father’s offer of a ride. He arrives back to the safety of the house just as the angry mob gets there. In gratitude, Marmaduke confesses that he needs to start taking more responsibility, and he gives his father $20 for the first year of rent [where do I get housing like that?!].
The episode’s subplot revolves around Dougie and Aubrey. Both men become obsessed with their lives at 22, the same age that Marmaduke is, when the carpoolers try to convince Gracen he should support his son’s efforts.
At that young age, Laird was traveling around Europe and getting all kinds of diseases, while Aubrey was in an Earth, Wind & Fire-style band called Soil, Breeze & Embers. Later, Aubrey tries to get rid of the stage outfit he used to wear at the time, but he finds himself extremely emotionally attached to something that represents the life he had before he became an overstressed family man.
Since Dougie is just 22 right now, he becomes preoccupied with transforming his dull life. He eventually decks out his car with magnetic flames and thunderbolts, and both he and his wife begin sporting hip-hop clothing, body language, and attitudes and listening to hip-hop music. It all looks as ridiculous as it sounds.
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